16 February 2013

These frequently heard questions seem deliberately determined to undermine a fine, government program that has served America since its founding, by making an odd, apples-to-oranges comparison.

I can send a letter from where I sit, here in Bee Cave, Texas (78738), all the way to Barrow, Alaska (99723) or Mililani, Hawaii (96789) for 46¢, and it will arrive in a day or two.

When was the last time that UPS and FedEx delivered a letter for 46¢? When was the first time either private company did this? Even back in their founding days (1971 for FedEx; 1907 for UPS, which started as a parcel service in Seattle).

Why doesn’t the Postal Service make money, indeed?
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Forget about Congress’s requirement that the USPS fully fund all its pension obligations up front. Forget the requirement that the USPS visit every mail box receiving even a single piece of cut-rate “bulk” mail six or five days a week:

When’s the last time you mailed a letter using FedEx or UPS, and got change back from your dollar?

What’s missing here? Other than an ideological determination to undermine the constitutional mandate that the United States government provide postal service?

14 January 2013

14 January 2013

Republican Objection to Chuck Hagel’s nomination focuses entirely on the Republicans’ disagreement with the Senator’s policies. Otherwise, his character and capabilities stand unquestioned.

In relation to the confirmation process, one might believe that Republicans expect only to vote for cabinet members who would serve their own, Republican, partisan agenda, rather than serve the elected officials whose political values won the relevant elections.

In the current case, the “elected official” is our reelected President of the United States. The political values relate to those voted on by the majority of the people of the United States.
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Something There Is, about the American political system and majority rule, that leading members of the Grand Old Party of the Republic fail to understand.

Maybe it’s not the American “government” that’s the problem. Maybe it’s just the “Republican” side which, by failing to understand how our government works, constitutes America’s real “problem.”*

As someone younger and wiser once said, “No wonder Republicans hate government: they don’t know how it works.”

While it may be true that both parties, Republican and Democratic, have their share of hypocrites, it is hard to argue with the premise that Democrats govern in pursuit of the COMMON good, while Republicans govern in the belief that what’s good for them INDIVIDUALLY is good for all.

Thus, it makes sense that GOP leaders vote to increase national debt and deficit spending when they control the purse strings. If it’s good for them, it must be good for America.

Look at the debt that President Reagan left America: we were convinced that it would impoverish our grandchildren. But soon we had a surplus—and now the Republicans lay that debt-and-deficit blame on the Democrats.

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You can’t always “grow” your way out of debt, as the U.S. did during the Clinton years. You can’t always “cut” your way out of debt, either. And if you always confuse “spending” with “investing” (as Republican politicians do) then you’re really selling American ingenuity short.

Meanwhile, those of us with wealth are squirreling it safely away, rather than this Republican fantasy of “creating jobs.” While those of us without wealth are barely getting by, and spending as little as possible. (Keep in mind that it was the Reagan Administration that both reined in inflation AND put homeless people on the streets of America for the first time in generations.)

When the citizens aren’t investing (the wealthy) or spending (the poor), that’s when government’s role kicks into gear. Government is the combined power of the people: it’s job is to do what we cannot, whether it comes to waging war, or to investing in infrastructure and new technology.

You may not like the idea of how government “investment” in research and infrastructure builds America. But it wasn’t private industry that built the transcontinental railroad or put Americans on the moon. Sometimes you just need to let go of your ideology. Or be destroyed by it.